We’ll always feel better about ourselves when doing our bit to save electricity and avoid the batteries aisle, but this green radio / torch combo has the added benefit of being practical too. Charge it by hand, in the sun or use USB port of your PC. If all else fails, there’s still the mains adaptor (but that’s an optional extra). A 1 minute wind-up gives 20 minutes and if that sounds like hard work, leave it in the sun for 5 hours for 30 minutes of music.

R335
www.thegreenshop.co.za
021 419 9605

Sony Ericsson Naite

The Green Heart initiative is pretty self-explanatory – it’s a range of phones that use our precious resources wisely and this one is available here. The in-phone manual replaces a paper one, the buttons are made of recycled plastic and the display is more energy efficient, so the phone’s CO2 emissions are reduced by 15%. But it’s not low on features, with a good camera, 3G connectivity, Windows 7 compatibility and even Google Maps built in.

R1999
www.sonyericsson.com
0861 632 222

Efergy e2 electricity monitor

Electricity meters are ugly, so they’re kept out of sight. That’s the problem right there. Despite the cost of power doubling in the last 3 years, we usually stick to the ‘out of sight out of mind’ principle. Just by keeping an eye your usage you can reduce your consumption. Attach the sensor to the supply cable and see the power tick over in kW, or better still, Rands per hour. We guarantee you’ll soon get around to adjusting the thermostat on the geyser.

R895 (phase 1)
www.electricitymonitor.co.za
021 5108786

MacBook Air

Don’t write it off as a coffee shop fashion accessory. Apart from pretty sharp performance (even the cheapest one edits large photo files with ease), it has decent green credentials. The aluminium shell is almost fully recyclable, it has a mercury-free display and stores all your data on a solid-state hard drive, which means no moving parts to power.

From R8999
www.apple.com
Digicape 0860 10 51 55

LG F1403FDS5 steam washing machine

Why didn’t anyone think of this before? This 9kg direct drive washing machine cleans with steam, demolishing dirt way faster than hot water. LG say that using steam, this machine consumes 20% less power and 35% less water. Plus it obliterates bacteria, so your rugby jersey will come out fresh, no matter how hard the practice session.

R8800
www.lg.com/za
0800 54 54 54

6-IN-1 Solar Robot Kit

This build-your-own solar-powered cyborg kit serves no purpose other than to exercise your mind and prepare yourself for when civilization ends and you have to raise an army to fight against the machines. Let’s just hope the sun continues to burn.

R279
www.mantality.co.za
0861 626 825

Samsung Series 6 40” LED TV

Samsung is at the top of the pile when it comes to displays, and their eco-responsibility measures up too. Their PlanetFirst program has led the manufacturers to banish mercury and lead from all components and that most of these bits can be recycled in some way. It’s a full HD, 100MHz refresh rate, Smart TV when on, and on standby it only less than 0.1W of power.

R10500
www.samsung.co.za

Efergy ShowerTime

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, your geyser munches Watts. Track your water usage with this gadget that lets you know how much water you’re using (Efergy recom- mends you stick to four-minute showers or 35 litres per shower.

R135
www.efergy.co.za
011 367 0626

Shakelight

The Shakelight generates light based on the Faraday Principle (remember his from science at school) – it’s a charge is created by moving (in this case, about two minutes of shaking) a magnet through a coil. The resulting charge is stored in a capacitor to give you about 15 min- utes of 15 000-lumen light. It’s also waterproof, shockresistantand non-corrosive.

From R120
www.shakelight.co.za

Freeloader Solar Charger

Dead phone. Baking sun. Harness the best natural energy source with the Freeloader. Plus, it comes with almost every possible connection, wait for it, under the sun.